The Favor: A Novel

PART ONE

One

The woman appears just as I’m about to lock up. She’s a sudden force, pushing so hard on the other side of the door that I have no choice but to open it.

I’m in! she says as she swooshes past me. She’s younger and more glamorous than our usual customers, with coppery curls that offset the drape of her pale cashmere coat. I note her diamond studs and the irreverence of a slip dress, which is paired with chunky biker boots she wears as easily as her astonishing beauty.

I check my watch. Can I help you with something?

Yes! I’m here for your Ferretti dress. I saw it on your website. She plants her bumblebee-yellow Birkin—not a fake—on the counter. Her voice holds the sweet and smoky flavor of the South.

We keep our best things upstairs, I say. Our boss lives over the shop. But Barb is upstate at her home in Rhinebeck, and I tend not to enter her apartment without asking.

"Ah, I figured it was your shop! You’ve got that whole retro classic thing." She waves a hand to encompass me.

I’m about to lock up, but if you want to stop by tomorrow, I’ll have the dress ready for you.

My flight’s in three hours. I’ll be quick—promise!

I’ve been on my feet all day, and I really need to get home to Jacob, but I can’t figure out how to say no to her expensive-looking teeth. I check my watch again. It’s late…

Sigh!

Did she just say the word sigh? But she doesn’t move. I don’t move either, and now we’re locked in a sudden game of upscale-retail chicken.

Nora, I can hang out, says Frankie, coming in from the storage room, where he’s been unboxing padded hangers. He drops into the club chair outside the dressing area. I give him the side-eye—it’s so late—but he ignores it. If you get me Barb’s key, I’ll take over. Frankie and I work most shifts together, so he knows all about my plans to swing by Whole Foods and pick up ingredients for chickpea meat loaf. I read him the recipe during our lunch break, despite his yawns. Dinner with my husband is my favorite part of the day, and I’m not about to blow it for Kentucky Elle Woods.

Let’s get at it, then! The woman tosses her coat onto the hook of our hat tree, then spins in a circle, taking in the fusty charms of our thin-skinned salmon silk carpet and cranberry velvet curtains. I’ve lived six years in the East Village and passed right by this shop, oh, must be a thousand times—till now!’ She beams at me. As if I’m the key to her fate instead of an attempt to escape it. Such a sweet name for a vintage shop, too. I’ll Have Seconds—how do you say no? I’m Evelyn.

Nora, I say.

Frankie, says Frankie. Take your time. Seth is traveling for work, and Frankie doesn’t like to be alone. I could leave right now if I wanted to, but I scrabble for the key in the register drawer. My mind is scrabbling too. If we’re both on the floor, Frankie and I split the 10 percent commission—and minus our hourly, we’ve made no more than a hundred dollars today, combined.

The Ferretti costs almost two thousand dollars.

I could double my day off this sale alone.

Herringbone, am I right? Evelyn reaches across the counter and gives the end of my braid a teasing yank. Nicely done too. Spelling bee chic. Who taught you?

I’m surprised by the question. I need a second. My mom.

So sweet. I adore tradition—and a braid is one of the best. It’s like a puzzle that solves a bad hair day. Thanks, Mama. She says this so gently, like she knows my mother. And is that beaded Valentino upstairs? Let’s bring that one down for a spin too.

The Valentino is three thousand dollars.

I find the key and fish it out.

It’s not like anyone was begging for chickpea meat loaf.

I’ll get the dresses, I call to Frankie, and before he can say anything, I duck through the back door that leads up to Barb’s apartment.

Given where this sale appears to be heading, she’ll surely forgive the trespassing.

Two

Upstairs, I text Jacob. He writes back, You got this, plus a chef and a heart emoji, and I send back an xoxo.

My breath is quick as I pull both pieces. I’ll Have Seconds is mostly high-end evening-wear consignment, but a real couture sale is a rare coup—let alone two. Frankie and I’ll need to upgrade our celebration from the usual overpriced cocktails at Death & Co.

On my way out of Barb’s with the gowns—which are so heavy I have to sling them over my shoulder like a couple of slumbering prom queens—I catch a dim view of myself in the hall mirror. My spearpoint collar and knife-pleat pants. My walnut-brown eyes, the same shade as my hair. A braid is one of the best. My mom died when I was a senior in high school, twenty years ago this spring. But whenever my fingers plait a fishtail or a waterfall, I can feel the bite of her plastic Goody comb dividing my part. Her singsongy Sit still, sit still.

I’m singsonging it under my breath to an imaginary daughter, binding the end of her imaginary pigtail, as I head downstairs.

On the floor, Evelyn has peeled herself to her lacy bra and underwear. She’s got our Balenciaga pencil skirt crimped up around her waist and is studying herself in the mirror.

Frankie is on his feet, releasing our mannequin from a couture ’93 Versace coatdress with gold Medusa buttons as big as quarters down its front.

I’m trying on a mess of other things, says Evelyn when she sees me. Forgive me, but I’m taking over your shop!

Okay. I am mostly speechless, looking at her.

Evelyn’s body is as inked as a treasure map. There’s a band of Gaelic encircling her left bicep, a butterfly spans the small of her back, and a trellis of wild ivy climbs daringly up her inner right thigh. Tiny scripted words whisper messages across her wrists, arms, and hips. She’s a living canvas. And so spectacular. Voluptuous and warmly suntanned, with curves like old-timey porn. The tattoos are a surprise, though—like cayenne pepper on a sweet potato pie.

It goes on easier from the bottom. I gesture, mimicking how to get into the skirt. And there’s a blouse.

Aha. Thanks, Spelling Bee! Did you win all the spelling bees at school?

I won a few, I admit, smiling. It’s an apt nickname; I’d been that student—a bookworm, a chaser of ribbons, stickers, and stars.

You look smart like that, says Evelyn. I wasn’t too much for school, but I’ve always loved the smart girls. They make me brainy by association. With a last yank on the skirt, she starts prowling, an apex predator in her luxury-boutique habitat. I pull the blouse and stand there holding it while Evelyn picks up cigarette boxes and opera glasses and sniffs into the perfume bottles lined up along our bookshelf. I was in the fragrance business, she says. Highly unprofitable—do not recommend. And what’s up with these books?

Rare books, says Frankie, who has plugged in our upright clothes steamer to give the Versace a quick once-over. Nora finds them.

So sweet, says Evelyn. And this Murano glass lamp…and your funky Biedermeier cabinet.

Yep, that’s all Nora, says Frankie. Before Nora fixed it up, Barb had it looking like a brothel.

"See? You are the boss. Evelyn’s laugh is low and rich with mischief. She slides a book out from the shelf. Frieda Bergessen was a friend of my great-grandmother’s."

Seriously? She’s my favorite, I say. I’d nearly had a heart attack when I found that first edition in Charleston a couple of years ago. It was some unexpected enchantment, that trip. Jacob and I got one deal on JetBlue (two center seats, not together) and another deal at the Riverview Inn (free breakfast, no Wi-Fi, no river view). We spent the weekend walking the harbor and eating our weight in deep-fried pickles at the Swig & Swine. I discovered Way to Find Me: Poems by Frieda Bergessen in a juice crate at a porch sale off King Street.

The copy is shabby. Its corners are foxed, the pages brittle, though Bergessen’s observations on love and friendship continue to stick around, recrafted for the virtual world in quotes and hashtags.

Back home, my family’s got Frieda treasures spread out like a cold supper, drawls Evelyn as she flips through the book. I even have an evening cloak created for her specially by Christian Dior.

Dior himself? That’s incredible, I say.

I guess so. She wore it to her last public appearance at Carnegie Hall.

Why’ve you got it at all? asks Frankie.

Because she left a lot of her things to my great-grandmother when she died. Great-Gran liked sponsoring the arts and arty types and such.

I trade a meaningful look with Frankie. Money. We watch Evelyn put down the book and finish her loop of the shop. Then she yanks off the skirt—Ready!—and unhooks her bra. Her large breasts plop out like a couple of beached jellyfish. I try not to look surprised, but casual topless isn’t a thing here. Our shoppers are well-heeled, discerning women—Frankie refers to them as the Discount Dowagers—who don’t want to spend the maximum for luxury labels but aren’t afraid to pay for quality.

I move to shut the storefront curtains as Evelyn slides into the coatdress.

That looks absolutely dreamy on you, pronounces Frankie, who tends to be excessive with client compliments.

It might be a bit snug, I add because it is.

Formfitting fits me fine, says Evelyn. I’ll take it.

I’ll put it up front, says Frankie. He’s trying to remain calm, but I can hear the thrill in his voice. Our Versace, at seventy-five hundred dollars, is our prized floor piece.

‘Way to Find Me’ is my favorite poem ever, says Evelyn as I reshelve the book.

Mine too, I say.

‘Of sweeter moments, far and few.’ She quotes the second verse. Is this a test?

‘There will never be another you,’ I finish.

Evelyn’s staring at me with surprised pleasure, as if I’m something she’s discovered that might bring her good luck. It’s a startling feeling, no less strange than if she’d kissed me. My favorite, she repeats.

Who is this schmaltz ball we keep talking about? asks Frankie, whose reading leans more toward fashion and design magazines, along with his subscription to Variety so that he can stay in the loop.

Frieda Bergessen, I tell him, was the daughter of—I think they were Scandinavian immigrants who settled somewhere in New England after the First World War. She was a prodigy—only seventeen when she wrote ‘Way to Find Me.’ That’s the poem she’s most known for. It’s so passionate and personable—and if Frieda gets hold of you young, she keeps you forever.

I scratched the line ‘My way to you was not a lie’ on Alex Jaffe’s locker after he cheated on me with Liz Knoll, Evelyn says. Frieda had good words for a wronged heart.

For me, that was Amy Winehouse, says Frankie.

There’s no doubt Amy was up on her Frieda, I say.

Clock is ticking. Let me try my Ferretti. Evelyn is shrugging out of the coatdress.

I hold up the gown like a shield to protect myself from her soft-core Bettie Page breasts. Once she climbs in, Frankie darts around to fasten the hook and eye.

"Now this auntie is a win," says Frankie, meaning it.

You’re like some kind of a rock star–Viking goddess, I blurt out. Really, I can’t stop looking at her.

Pleased, Evelyn stares at herself in the mirror. Who’s Auntie?

When Frankie explains that our best pieces belonged to Barb’s long-dead aunt, Evelyn claps her hands. Rustle me up the rest of the aunties!

This time, Frankie makes the dash upstairs and returns with a haul, and Evelyn’s game to try them all. Something about these campy diva Las Vegas–style gowns, with their plunging necklines and glittery batwing sleeves, fits with her burlesque beauty.

She’s the perfect client—the woman who turns a dress into a story.

Let’s take a break, Evelyn declares as we release her from a heavily structured Scassi, while I decide what I want to buy. She must see some flicker of concern in my eyes, because she dips into her Birkin for her wallet, then hands over her thick, battle-ready Amex Platinum. For real.

I smile, relieved. There’s Taittinger in our mini fridge.

Will Barb care? asks Frankie.

Only when she wants it and sees that it’s gone. I find the champagne and pop the cork while Frankie gets plastic cups from the stockroom.

When I take the love seat, Evelyn jumps next to me, sloshing our drinks. Do you have Sonos? I’m putting on my playlist! Her knees bump compatibly against mine. Like we’ve done this a hundred times before. It’s strange but not unpleasant.

Frankie gives Evelyn the Wi-Fi network and password, and now Lana del Rey intros soulfully through the speakers. Evelyn nudges in closer. I let it happen.

To Ferretti? Versace? Frankie raises his cup as our eyes trade another woo boy. Even if Evelyn purchases a fraction of what she likes, we’ve made our entire week.

To me, of course! sings Evelyn. Your rock star–Viking goddess!

We laugh and tap cups, and over the next hour, Frankie and I are a captive audience to whatever Evelyn wants to talk about next; it’s her money, of course, that gives her permission to have the most to say. We learn that she’s thirty-five years old, an only child who grew up all over, but mostly at her family home in Tennessee, before attending boarding school in New Hampshire—for some spit and polish—followed by a single semester at UC Santa Cruz, where she met Jurgen, a Swiss DJ who soon became the father of her son, Xander. She has her scuba diving license, she’s been to Base Camp One and Timbuktu, and she would have been part of the U.S. National Equestrian team if she hadn’t taken a fall that fractured her collarbone; one of her most heartfelt cause célèbres, she tells us somberly, is the care and rehabilitation of retired racehorses. She cochairs the annual Frick Young Fellows Gala in the fall and the Watermill Center’s Summer Benefit. She’s six years married to an artist named Henry, and they live downtown.

She shows us photos of Xander, whose sprinkling disruption of eighth-grade acne can’t hide that he is beautiful like his mom.

You were twenty-one when you had a baby? I ask carefully.

A new twenty-two. Xander was the last thing I thought I wanted. Evelyn puts away her phone. And prepare to be shocked, but it turns out DJs don’t make the most exemplary parents. Thank goodness I’ve got Henry. He’s such a great big hug of a stepdaddy.

That’s so lovely, is what I intend to say, but what comes out is That’s so lucky.

We are, says Evelyn. We’re a real cozy little family.

I was asked to be in a threesome at my friend’s bachelorette party, says Frankie, with a quick glance at me, as he deftly shifts us to sex anecdotes for the reward of Evelyn’s laughter. We’re all getting tipsy, which is probably why Frankie and Evelyn now decide to recreate some TikTok dances. On Evelyn’s urging, I recite a few stanzas of Way to Find Me before she’s suddenly on her feet in a bounce. She pulls her phone from where it fell into the velvet cushions. My bottom buzzed me! It’s my driver. My flight’s leaving—quick, pack it all up. I want everything.

"Everything, what? I laugh. You’re kidding."

Aw, Spelling Bee, I’m not sure that’s a winning sales strategy, says Evelyn. Yes, every last thing.

Will you come back for alterations? Frankie looks stunned.

I have my own tailor. My driver’s almost here. Point me to the ladies’?

We can barely keep our cool, and as soon as Evelyn vanishes to the bathroom downstairs, Frankie and I grab each other’s hands and start spinning.

When did we ever do a sales number like this?

The lady with the Q-tip hair? Who bought all the dragonfly stickpins?

Nora, I’m pretty sure this is bigger than our whole June!

It’s such a rush, all this money. I’m already imagining how I’ll tell the story to Jacob.

And the books, says Evelyn as she reappears. Are they worth a lot?

The books? I shake my head. The books aren’t for sale.

Why not?

Because they… Because they’re mementos from Jacob’s and my road trips. Crackerjack prizes pried from flea markets and swap meets. I pick up The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. This copy is water damaged, see? I got it for her hash fudge recipe.

Evelyn’s breath is on my cheek. How much?

They’re not—

Two K for all of them, calls out Frankie, but he doesn’t even sound serious; we both know the books couldn’t be worth more than fifty dollars.

The thing is, I say, just because I picked these books doesn’t mean—

Nora worked at Lineage Holdings, says Frankie grandly. A boutique auction house, he adds. Very prestigious.

I try to think of something to add. But they aren’t valuable, I wasn’t—

Two thousand, done, says Evelyn.

Except I’m not—

Oh, no! Frankie presses a finger to his chin. His eyes twinkle. Nore, have you already placed these books with another client?

No, I answer. Not…at this time.

Then finders keepers, says Evelyn.

It feels too easy. Money—my evergreen worry—is just falling into my lap.

Poor you, says Evelyn when, books packed, I meet her up front.

Poor me, why?

I’m adopting all your book babies.

They’re going to a good family. I try to match her breezy tone. I feel dazed by my windfall. But she’s right—I’m sorry to give up my books.

Promise I’ll make it up to you. She takes one of my hands, binding our fingers so tight that it feels like she’s stitched them together. I owe you.

Here’s when I should assure this almost-stranger she doesn’t have to promise me anything. At the same time, I can’t shake my sense that whatever she believes she owes me, it’s real to her. Maybe it’s the champagne talking. Or the way Evelyn is staring at me, like I’m her long-lost family. But now I’ve got an ache in my throat, and so I keep silent. Holding her grip. Allowing the moment, whatever she needs, until she lets me go.

Three

She’s magic, obviously. She could read my mind. I blow out the match I’ve used for our tealight candles and look over at Jacob, who is busy in the kitchen. How else would she know how I feel about the books?

Dunno. Jacob slides two turkey burgers from the skillet onto our plates and brings them out to the table in our front room. She sounds like a lot.

"Did I tell you she was flying to Italy?"

You did.

Did I tell you she was going for only three days?

You mentioned.

But I don’t think it’s the last I’ll hear from her. What do you think?

"I think, What a day." We sit, and Jacob raises his beer—he’s even poured it into a pilsner glass.

Including you making everything perfect. Look at this, and with flowers—so special. Thank you.

Hey, it’s worth celebrating. Cheers to your biggest commission ever.

As happy as I am about that, even better is how Jacob lets me keep circling Evelyn. Like a seventh grader with a first crush, I’ve related pretty much everything—but I don’t want to stop talking about her just yet. She’s too deep in my head. So I tell him again about her low, dirty laugh. The way she sailed around in her lingerie. Her wonderland body. The seven nautical stars scattered down her lower back to mark Xander’s seventh birthday. The winged St. Mark’s Lion at her pubic bone, from after she spent that month in Venice.

She’s like someone from another era, but I don’t know if I mean from the past or the future. Frankie said she’s like if joie de vivre were a person.

And no chance she’s coming back tomorrow, a la Marjorie Gangle? Jacob smiles as I give him the look of anything but Marjorie Gangle, aka I’ll Have Sevenths because of her penchant for returning everything she bought the day before. But we’re both reveling in a conversation about money that, for once, isn’t tense and depressing. This past year, debts forced us to sell our Honda Accord, Jacob’s Peugeot racing bike, and the emerald earrings he’d given me on my thirtieth birthday.

Evelyn doesn’t have that excess-spare-time Marjorie energy, I say, so I’m counting on the whole forty-five-hundred-dollar commission.

What’s her family fortune, anyway? Jacob’s tipped so far back in his chair I used to panic he’d fall over—athlete that he is, he never does. Guessing you and Frankie went online sleuthing. Gold, oil, Big Pharma? Rock, paper, scissors?

Steel! She’s descended from some railway mogul. T. Rutherford Fitzroy.

"Now that’s a name. T for Tycoon."

Yes. Deep tycoon roots. On our respective subway routes home—Frankie zipping up to Chelsea, me tunneling the East River to Gowanus—Frankie sent me a link to an interview in Southern Lady that featured Evelyn’s mom, Evelyn Bitsy Fitzroy-Boyle, talking up her century-old trees. I sent Frankie the article about Evelyn’s dad showing off his Colt and Winchester collections in Garden & Gun. We also traded images of Evelyn’s silver fox husband, Henry, a dashing presence on her arm at their upmarkety-downtowny social events.

Evelyn sleeps naked, I remember as we clean the kitchen the way we always do: Jacob steady on the dishes while I orbit him, drying and putting away, then setting the counter for breakfast. She says everyone should.

Agree. Jacob drops a cleaning pod into the dishwasher.

But you’d be devastated if I gave up my gray sweatpants.

I would. It’s tough to pull off sexy baby elephant. But night after night, you nail it.

We’re in the couple-mood I love best—lighthearted and a bit fizzy. As Jacob replaces the detergent on the high shelf, I steal up behind him, twining my arms around his chest. He turns and presses his lips against my mouth, kissing me along my throat as I tug up his shirt along with his undershirt.

We break to throw a liver snack to Nick, our scrappy terrier-mix chaperone, before we move to the bedroom. We’re taking our time, mutually delivering each other’s bodies the earned confidence of knowing what works, what works better.

Tonight’s zing of the unexpected also might be reactivating something deep within us. Reminding us of the fun sex we used to have, way back when we were fun-sex people.

Jacob even says it afterward, as we lie together in bed in the dark, listening to our breath and the late-night traffic and sirens off Atlantic. You know what? He traces a finger down the side of my neck. That was dating sex.

Did we do that?

I meant, you know, if we’d dated.

In truth, we did date—but not much, since we were engaged seven months to the day we met. An instant connection, although we crossed paths only because of some shared midtown-office real estate. At the time, Jacob was at Hoopla, creating new tech platforms for educational games. Seven floors up, I worked in the parallel universe of Lineage Holdings, a traditional auction house specializing in fine watches and jewelry. The two companies shared a cafeteria—and, as it happened, a moment of old-fashioned good luck.

I remember my first sight of Jacob in storybook detail—his unhurried walk, his lanky boyishness, the graceful way he balanced his lunch in one hand as he spoke with a friend in the checkout line. I can picture his thumbs-up to the cashier, the smooth slide into his seat at the round table. His smile for everyone. And when his direct and curious gaze landed on me, I had an immediate sense of him all at once, and our connection felt as electric as it did predestined. Like I’d lived my whole life to be here in this molded plastic chair, with this lunch of Harmless Harvest coconut water and my turkey and cheese on wheat, plus a pickle, waiting for Jacob Hammond to saunter around that corner.

We didn’t speak then, but he made a point to catch up with me the next day as we cleared our trays after lunch.

You always stared at me like you wanted to see me naked, is Jacob’s teasing take about those early meetups. Embarrassing, but I never had much of a poker face. Our first dates were a breathless rollout of drinks, movies, dinners, and sex that blew up our life into a wreckage of nights with no sleep at his place or mine, and days lived in a countdown of hours until we could be alone with each other again. I’ve never been a party-drugs type, but Jacob might be the closest I ever got to an addiction, as I was in perpetual need of a hit.

Luckily, he was on a similar drug.

"You sure